John Ralston Saul

Award-winning essayist and novelist, John Ralston Saul has had a growing impact on political and economic thought in many countries. Declared a "prophet" by TIME magazine, he is included in the prestigious Utne Reader's list of the world's 100 leading thinkers and visionaries. His works have been translated into 22 languages in 30 countries.

Saul's latest work, A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada, examines Canadian history and tradition and the need to recognize the truths that have formed Canada as a nation, that the country is far more Aboriginal in its methods than European. Previous to 2008, he penned Joseph Howe and the Battle for the Freedom of Speech, which addresses the legacy of Howe, especially his contributions to a uniquely Canadian perspective on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Here, Saul harkens back to a time when political debate had a priority in Canada.

In The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World, Saul confronts the reigning economic ideology known as globalization. Far from being an inevitable force, Saul believes globalization is already breaking up into contradictory pieces and that citizens are reasserting their national interests in both positive and destructive ways. The Publishers Weekly review concluded: "Needless to say, Saul will have no fans among the tax cutters and free trade proselytizers, but his salient analysis is as accessible and relevant to the small shop owner as it is to the CEO of a multinational corporation."

He has received many national and international awards for his writing, most recently the Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honour from the Chilean government. His Massey Lectures, The Unconscious Civilization, won the 1996 Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction, as well as the Gordon Montador Award for Best Canadian Book on Social Issues. His reinterpretation of the nature of Canada, Reflections of a Siamese Twin, also won a Montador Award and was chosen by Maclean's as one of the ten best non-fiction books of the twentieth century. Saul is the General Editor of the Penguin 'Extraordinary Canadians' project. The series features inspired pairings of writers and subjects and seeks to reinterpret important Canadian figures for a contemporary audience.

Saul is best known for his philosophical trilogy Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense and The Unconscious Civilization. This was followed by a meditation on the trilogy On Equilibrium: Six Qualities of the New Humanism. His reinterpretation of the nature of Canada Reflections of a Siamese Twi (1997) was a groundbreaking reassessment of Canada and launched a national debate.

He has published five novels, including The Birds of Prey, an international best seller, as well as The Field Trilogy, which deals with the crisis of modern power and its clash with the individual. It includes Baraka or The Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor of Anthony Smith, The Next Best Thing, and The Paradise Eater, which won the prestigious Premio Lettarario Internazionale in Italy. De Si Bons Americains is a picaresque novel in which he observes the life of modern nouveaux riches Americans.

He is particularly known for his commentaries on the nature of individualism, citizenship and the public good; the failures of managerially/technocratically led societies; the confusion between leadership and managerialism; military strategy, in particular irregular warfare; the role of freedom of speech and culture; and his critique of contemporary economic arguments.

Saul is co-Chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. He is Patron and former president of the Canadian Centre of International PEN. He is also Founder and Honorary Chair of French for the Future, Chair of the Advisory Board for the LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture series, and a Patron of PLAN (a cutting edge organization tied to people with disabilities), Engineers without Borders, and the Canadian Landmine Foundation. He is also a member of the Council of Writers and Experts of ICORN (International Cities of Refuge Network). A Companion in the Order of Canada (1999), he is also Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France (1996). His 13 honourary degrees range from McGill and the l'Universit d'Ottawa to Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Born in Ottawa, he studied at McGill University and the University of London, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1972.

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